CHILDREN'S AILMENTS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
i
SIR,—Your contributor " Crusader, in your issue of December 29th, makes the statement, to width I hope you will allow me to oppose one or two facts, that " Smallpox was the scourge of infancy until Jenner's day in our country, and is so still wherever vaccination is not practised." The greatest epidemic of smallpox in tins 'country occurred in 1871-2 when 42,084 persons died from smallpox. In May 1871, Sir John Simon, principal Medical Officer to the Privy Council, stated that at that time 971 per cent. of the popu- lation, over two years of age and under fifty, had either been vaccinated or had had smallpox. During the present century less than half the children born have been vaccinated, and we have had innumerable warnings as to the dangers the nation is running from the existence of millions of unvaccinated persons in the country. Yet, in the twenty-one years ending December, 1925, only sixty children under five in England and Wales died of smallpox, and 207 were officially admitted to have died of vaccination. The average number of deaths kiom smallpox in the, last twenty years is twelve—fewer than are killed by motor cars in any week in London—I am, &c.,
Kineton, Warwick. ERNEST PARKE.
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